DailyMail | The
Cheyenne Mountain Complex is one of the icons of the Cold War - a
self-contained and sufficient town buried under the Rockies meant to be
impervious to a Soviet nuclear barrage.
It
was home to the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), scanning the
skies for Russian missiles and the military command and control center
of the United States in the event of World War Three.
The
high tech base entered popular culture with appearances in the 1983
Cold War thriller War Games and 1994's Stargate - which imagined the
complex as a clandestine home for intergalactic travel.
It shut down
nearly ten years ago as the threat from Russia seemed to subside, but
this week the Pentagon announced that Cheyenne Mountain will once again
be home to the most advanced tracking and communications equipment in
the United States military.
The
shift to the Cheyenne Mountain base in Colorado is designed to
safeguard the command's sensitive sensors and servers from a potential
electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, military officers said.
The
Pentagon last week announced a $700 million contract with Raytheon
Corporation to oversee the work for North American Aerospace Command
(NORAD) and US Northern Command.
Admiral
William Gortney, head of NORAD and Northern Command, said that 'because
of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain's built, it's
EMP-hardened.'
